The governments both of the Four Hundred and of the Thirty were too short-lived to furnish us with materials for forming any precise estimate of Greek oligarchy in general. They never went beyond the stage of being revolutionary or half-established governments: and, being in constant terror of destruction, they were obliged to resort to cruel measures which a settled oligarchy would not need. The mere fact that Greek oligarchies were often long-lived governments suffices to show that they were not, like the rule of the Four Hundred or the Thirty, so sanguinary and oppressive as to provoke successful mutiny or rebellion: and we are entitled to believe that, as Athenian democracy was the best of Greek democracies, so Athenian oligarchy was the worst of Greek oligarchies. IV. _The conquest of the Greek cities by Macedonia._ The division of the Greek people into a large number of small independent cities was a system which answered well enough as long as the political horizon included no states other than Greek cities and Asiatic Empires. The Macedonians were a European people inhabiting a large territory to the north of Greece, and united under a strong military monarchy. They had formerly lived under a tribal monarchy of the heroic type: in the fourth century B.C. they may be compared with the Goths under Alaric or the Salian Franks under Clovis. They were devoted to military pursuits: they had some of the spirit of individual independence which is usually found in a rude people of warriors, and they showed it even under Alexander the Great, the strongest of all their kings[224]: but their king was their commander, and in time of war, so long as he commanded ably, he enjoyed supreme power. To resist such a people as the Macedonians the Greeks would have had to do the impossible: to unlearn in a moment all the maxims of jealous precaution against rival cities by which they had regulated their conduct, to give up the practice of politics in miniature and understand at once what was needed in politics on a larger scale. As it was, the old jealousy between Athens and Sparta continued to be as active as ever, only one or two Greek states joined in resistance to the invader, and after the battle of Chæroneia in 338 B.C. Greece lay at the mercy of Philip king of Macedonia. [224] Especially on the famous occasion when Alexander did not dare to put his general Philotas to death till he had been condemned by the assembled chieftains and warriors. Grote, part II. chapter XCIV. CHAPTER VI. ARISTOTLE'S CLASSIFICATION OF POLITIES.